How to read Vince Cable's big speech on science at QMUL

by William Cullerne Bown

Invites are going out now to what is being billed as Vince Cable's first major speech on science. It's at 9am on 8 September at Queen Mary's BioEnterprises Innovation Centre in East London. As usual, on the day, I will be doing an analysis of the speech (on an updated version of this page). But in advance, I thought it would be useful to take stock of where we are and consider Cable's options.

This speech really is a big deal. I understand that in recent meetings with BIS, the research councils have been told not to prepare submissions for a further round of discussion after George Osborne announces the resuls of the Comprehensive Spending Review on 20 October. In other words, all the important decisions about spending are going to be taken between now and 20 October. So the speech comes at an absolutely crucial time.

What's more, the decisions to be taken are big, and not just in cash terms. For example, I understad BIS itself remains unclear as to the level of specification the Treasury will provide on 20 October. Will the Treasury even split out a separate budget for Adrian Smith as Director General for Science and Research? If it doesn't, then the research councils' budgets will remain vulnerable to a raid every time a car manufacturer runs into trouble.

And the omens are not looking good. I'm told that mild optimism at BIS has evaporated in the past month and that there is still no progress on the central campaign for a renewed government commitment to long-term support for the science base (whatever the short-term pain).

I think the central question is still what role spending by government on research and technology plays in  the government's economic thinking. Everything follows from that. A year ago, both Cable and George Osborne were talking about a sectoral rebalancing of the economy with precedence being given to things like advanced manufacturing. Cable still is, but Osborne is not. Now, with the spending decisions looming, it's make your mind up time.

There are two fundamental options. Either the coalition believes the state has an important role in securing Britain's hi-tech future, in which case it should have no difficulty in committing to long-term support for science. Or it doesn't, in which case the only thing it can say is, as Margaret Thatcher did, that the government's job is to cut taxes so that firms can make up their own minds about where to spend their money.

As yet, Osborne has not adopted either position. The centrepiece of his Budget statement was the cut in Corporation Tax. But he framed this in terms of competition between Britain and other countires and the idea of Britain being open for business. He didn't argue that it would do anything to help with hi-tech investment or rebalancing the economy.

So here's one way Cable could open his speech:

This has been billed as my first big speech on science, and it is. So let me be clear about how important science is to this government.

"We have to rebalance this economy to make it less wholly dependent on the success of financial services. We need active government support for manufacturing, low carbon energy, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, the creative industries and the other sectors Britain should be excelling in."

Not my words - George Osborne's, in a speech last October. And I'm repeating them today because I want everyone to be clear about the central place that hi-tech economic sectors have in the thinking of this government. And hence, the importance we attach to the science and engineering base that underpins those sectors.

This would be a Cable fighting for the sectoral rebalancing he has been supporting recently. More, by repeating Osborne's support for the idea, he would be putting pressure on the Chancellor to fulfil the promises he made in Ocober. Osborne wouldn't like it, but that's the point. And if Cable goes this far, then he can't really avoid talking about long-term financial commitments and all the other pressing issues.

So that's what I'll be looking for in Cable's speech. How about you? Please use the comments section below to suggest things you'd like Cable to say.

Delpy says Shared Services Centre remains on track

by William Cullerne Bown

I spoke to David Delpy about the the accusation from Cardiff’s John Seddon that RCUK’s Shared Services Centre is a “fantastically expensive failure”. As of a couple of months ago, the EPSRC’s chief executive is also responsible for the SSC. And he is confident that, contrary to what Seddon claims, the SSC will soon take over all the planned functions from the individual research councils and generate substantial savings.

Delpy says the transition to the SSC covers two areas. The first is finance, personnel and procurement, on course to complete by December with only MRC, BBSRC and parts of NERC to go. The second is common grants management, the bit that will affect researchers and universities. This is on course to start transitioning at the end of this year and complete early next year.

Procurement has already transitioned to the SSC and is on track to generate savings of £25 million this financial year. Partly for this reason, Delpy remains confident that the planned savings of £456m over 10 years will be achieved.

The project is running something over a year behind the original schedule, Delpy says, but its scope has grown beyond that originally planned.

Delpy also says Seddon was wrong to cite £40m as the original cost of the scheme. That was only the cost of the main computer system bought from Fujitsu. All in all, he says Seddon’s accusations are “unjustifiable”.

And he says that the SSC is vital in the context of the government’s budget squeeze.

“The research councils  are going to have to make savings of a third in their administration,” he says. “I don’t see how we could do that without common back office functions.”

Coalition politics, graduate taxes and the Browne review

by William Cullerne Bown

John Browne is due to deliver his recommendations on revising the system of undergraduate finance in October. But the starting point for any consideration of what is to come can not be the various policy options he is analysing. It has to be the question of what legislation can be pushed through the House of Commons.

Undergraduate finance is a highly charged topic. Any reform of this middle-class welfare is electorally potent and can be likened to driving a train freighted with political dynamite through hostile media territory. It would be a massive undertaking for any prime minister, whatever their majority. But for David Cameron, with the Lib Dems threatening to abstain, it’s specially explosive.

Government legislation on this is not guaranteed a majority and Cameron could end up a loser. The need to prevent that is why we all need to start thinking like a whip. Once you do, the current fog of confusion over things like the idea of a graduate tax dissolves.

 

The arithmetic

The arithmetic in the Commons is this:

Conservatives - 306 (after allowing for the Speaker)

Liberal Democrats - 57

Labour - 258

Others - 24 (excluding Sinn Fein absentees).

If the Lib Dems vote with the Conservatives, then their vote seems overwhelming - 363 vs 282, a majority of 81. Whatever the substance, whatever the rebellion, Cameron can’t fail to get a vote through if Clegg is leading his party past the Aye tellers.

However, the coalition agreement gives the Lib Dems the right to abstain in certain circumstances. The text of the agreement states: “If the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote.”

This seems a loosely-worded opt-out that Clegg can play at will, potentially covering several votes. If the Lib Dems opt out, then the arithmetic gets much tighter - the Conservative 306 vs a maximum of 282 others, a majority of 24. This means just 12 Conservative rebels could potentially defeat a vote in the Commons, provided all the opposition parties oppose it.

This brings us back to the factional dynamics within the Conservative party that bedevilled John Major. He had a dozen right-wing “bastards” who were prepared to do immense damage to the party as a whole in order to try and push the party rightwards. That right wing is still there in the Conservative party and is, by all accounts, spoiling for a fight. A vote on fees with Lib Dem abstentions is one of the few chances it is going to get to give Cameron a bloody nose.

If the Lib Dems abstain, then the potential to defeat Cameron will likely be too tempting for Labour to refuse, whatever the substance on offer. So passage of any vote in the Commons will depend primarily on how many “bastards” there are (currently a closely guarded secret as the Conservative right no longer makes the mistake of identifying itself via clubs); on how many Lib Dems are prepared to break the whip and vote against instead of abstaining (which Menzies Campbell has more than hinted at); and on the attitude of the minor parties. Bear in mind that, unlike Labour, the minor parties can be bought off. For example, the SNP would probably go for a deal that maximises the number of Scottish MPs when the number of constituencies is culled.

So trying to get reform through the Commons with a Lib Dem abstention is an uncertain route, fraught with danger for Cameron. But one point stands out. The first issue for Cameron is whether Clegg can be brought on board. If he can, then Cameron can be confident of getting through the Commons with a minimum of fuss. If he can’t, then things get much more difficult. Most MPs still have to decide where they stand, creating enormous uncertainty, but it’s certainly possible that Cameron could be defeated if he attempts to push through reforms without Clegg’s support. So Cameron’s position has to be one of wait-and-see until Clegg makes up his mind.

 

The shape of water

Today, Cameron clearly does have a wait-and-see approach. His point man, David Willetts, is saying wait and see to questions. And the formula that the coalition has agreed on for now - “looking at the feasibility of changing the system of financing student tuition so that the repayment mechanism is variable graduate contributions tied to earnings” - is a wait-and-see formula [more on this below].

Meanwhile, Clegg is getting on with the task of maturing the internal Lib Dem discussion to the point where he can decide whether he can back a reform plan. Most Lib Dem MPs (and a lot of Labour ones, too) have signed the NUS pledge, reading: “I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative”.

To those like the Treasury and universities that want students to pay more, this pledge is supposed to read like a “No Pasaran” banner. Clegg’s task is to find a formula that allows Lib Dem MPs to vote with the Conservatives in the Commons while saying they have not broken their pledge. He can’t burn the banner or storm it; that would strengthen resistance. He has to seep around the banner, taking on - in the phrase used by the novellist Andrea Camilleri in describing the murky mafia-politics nexus in Italy - the “shape of water”, which is to say, no solid position at all.

So between now and winter, the central action I think is within the Lib Dems. As they face up to the realities of power and the detail of the fees debate, how will opinion develop there? Just as Cameron has alienated his right wing, Clegg has alienated his left. Where this cold-shouldered rump of the party end up - people like Charles Kennedy, Simon Hughes and Menzies Campbell - will be telling.

 

Parting of the ways

There will have to be ongoing discussions between Lib Dems and Conservatives aimed at reaching an agreed coalition position, but both sides can walk away without breaking faith or imperilling the coalition itself. That makes a deal far from certain. From Cameron’s point of view, he probably doesn’t need solid Lib Dem support. The key thing is to get support from Clegg. A Lib Dem rebellion, even a sizeable one of 10-20 MPs, probably won’t matter because the net inflow of Lib Dem votes will likely still be enough to stop the bastards defeating the government.

One upshot of this arithmetic is that the political environment for the development of policy in this area is highly, unusually, unstable. To get the support of his party, Clegg needs to be able to sell any reforms as “progressive”, ie left-wing. But if the Lib Dems drop out of the equation, then Cameron needs the support of at least some bastards in the Commons, and the more progressive the proposal is, the less they’ll like it.

Therefore, there is potentially a parting of the ways to come. There are two ways for Cameron to be confident of getting a revised system through the Commons. One is with the support of Nick Clegg, which will have to be progressive. The other is without Clegg’s support, in which case the safest route is anti-progressive with (probably unrelated) sweeteners for minor parties, even though this risks a Lib Dem backlash. (The more right-wing the proposal becomes, the more likely Lib Dem MPs are to break the whip and actively vote against the proposal.)

This is the reverse of coalition politics as usual, which consists of negotiating and narrowing differences. At the moment, Cameron can wait and see. But once Browne reports, pressure will start to mount for him to take a position. At this point he needs an answer from Clegg on whether he will lead the Lib Dems in support of reforms, and what the price for that is. If Cameron can’t get a clear answer to that question by the time Browne reports in the autumn, then he is in a real quandary. Several points follow.

First, this is another reason for a wait-and-see policy. Committing to either progressive or anti-progressive approaches would be to give a hostage to fortune.

Second, this of itself becomes a powerful argument for Clegg to win over wavering left-wing Lib Dems. Abstain and you gift victory to the bastards, your bitterest opponents.

Third, the same sort of argument can also be used (with more difficulty) by Cameron on the bastards. Hold out for anything too extreme and I’ll do a progressive deal with the Lib Dems.

Fourth, it explains precisely the positions taken currently by the coalition partners. Cameron is waiting for Clegg, and avoids taking a position in the meantime. Clegg is aiming to bring the party on board to support a vote in the commons, but can’t be sure of success. Hence he is floating progressive ideas without committing to any of them.

 

Clegg’s gambit

Last month Cable floated the prospect of the Lib Dems voting for reforms and the discussion within the party is now under way. Cable’s speech was widely reported as a call to replace the current fees system with a graduate tax. But here’s how I explained what’s going on in Research Fortnight:

 Take a look at what Cable actually said in his big speech on higher education: “I am interested in looking at the feasibility of changing the system of financing student tuition so that the repayment mechanism is variable graduate contributions tied to earnings”.

There is no mention of a graduate tax there. And, since the speech to vice-chancellors at South Bank University, officials at Cable’s Department of Business Innovation and Skills have been briefing universities about the exact meaning of the word “variable”.

“Variable”, I am told, could mean that the amount paid by the graduate varies according to their income (as in a graduate tax). But it could also mean that it varies according to the university the student studied at (as in truly variable fees), or indeed the subject they studied (as in bye-bye government subsidy for humanities students).

Plus, of course, it can be argued that the existing fees regime is tied to earnings since you don’t have to repay anything until your salary reaches a set level.

Hence the meaning of the phrase “variable graduate contribution tied to earnings” as defined by Cable is so broad as to allow for any of the realistic options being considered by John Browne in his review of student fees, including the minimalist option of tweaking the fees regime without primary legislation.

Clearly Cable’s objective in spinning a “graduate tax” (while in fact sticking to an agreed coalition “graduate contribution” line) is to win Lib Dems over to the idea that the coalition’s proposals, when they emerge, are progressive and therefore acceptable. Equally clearly, it is no surprise when Willetts says he is only committed to a graduate contribution. This also is what Cable has actually said.

The reaction to Cable’s speech shows this gambit has had some success. The NUS greeted the speech with enthusiasm (even if this has dulled a bit as the reality has sunk in). On the other hand, the lecturers’ union has moved quickly to try and quash the idea that a graduate tax would be progressive, arguing that teachers and nurses would still pay more. This mixed reaction creates precisely the kind of confusion in the minds of voters and Lib Dems that Clegg needs. What does Cable mean by a graduate tax, and would it be progressive? The answer to these questions truly is as shapeless as water itself.

 

End game

An important subtlety in all this is that very little actually needs to go through Parliament. Nearly all the current financial regime can be revised without legislation. Only the cap on tuition fees needs a vote in the Commons, and that requires only a simple vote, not the lengthy legislative consideration that would allow opponents to build momentum. Which is not to say there won’t be some huge complicated bit of HE legislation as part of all this. Just that that may turn out to be a distraction from the main event.

I can see Cameron and Clegg playing right and left wings off against each other all the way up to the division bell in an attempt to navigate a middle way. As the detail of options emerges, as MPs properly grapple with the issues, as soundings are taken and the whips squeeze, as deals are lined up with minor parties and amidst a fog of brinksmanship and disinformation, Cameron may find he is be able to muddle through with a twin-track muddle.

But this would come at a price. It can only be done by failing to take a meaningful position on the substantive questions, which will be intellectually incoherent and - more’s the pity for Cameron as it’s one of his strongest cards - by abdicating leadership for as long as the twin-track approach persists.

This is why Cameron wants Clegg on side by the time Brown reports, and why Lib Dems have to be softened up now for the U-turn on fees.

RCUK Shared Services Centre 'a fantastically expensive failure'

by William Cullerne Bown

John Seddon is visiting professor at the Lean Enterprise Research Centre at Cardiff University and managing director of Vanguard Consulting, which advises the public sector in the UK, Netherlands and Scandinavia. In a lengthy review of the problems involved in call centres and other "service factories" last month, Seddon cites the RCUK Shared Services Centre in Swindon as a textbook example of what can go wrong. He says:

"Consider some of the fantastically expensive failures of shared services projects such as the shared services programme for the UK Research Councils (sharing IT, HR and finance) which was bought at £40m and is now forecast to cost £120m, and it ain’t over till the shared services work (which they don’t and probably won’t)."

RCUK has being saying that despite increased costs, the service centre is a success. Here we have one of the UK's experts in the field saying it's "a fantastically expensive failure". I don't know who's right. But if the failure is actually on the scale cited by Seddon, then you have to wonder why no one at RCUK has lost their job.

[Update, 14 August. David Delpey has spoken to me and countered Seddon's criticisms.]

Chemical engineers back physicists in row with Royal Academy of Engineering

by Laura Hood

The Institution of Chemical Engineers has come down on the side of physicists in the row between the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Physics ahead of October’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

The RAEng wrote to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills earlier this month calling on the government to reconsider its support for fundamental research, and of particle physics in particular, in favour of science that could provide more short-term economic returns.

In a letter sent today to Research Fortnight, signed jointly by David Brown, chief executive of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and Robert Kirby-Harris, chief executive of the Institute of Physics, the government is urged to continue backing basic research.

The text of the letter is as follows:

Sir,

The UK’s future will not be helped by a ‘battle’ for funds between basic research and engineering application: they need each other.

Melvyn Bragg talks science cuts

by Laura Hood

A few weeks ago I met up with Melvyn Bragg to talk about his appointment as an associate fellow of the Royal Society. Discussions quickly turned to funding cuts, a subject about which he evidently feels very strongly. And he knows who to blame:

“I worry about politicians. Not enough of them are well enough educated in science,” he told me. “I think they have smattering but they’re not sympathetic to what is the most necessary area of our future and probably the liveliest area of our intellectual life. It’s a failure, a political failure on the biggest scale. Thank God for the House of Lords where you’ve got so many great scientists.”

He is also furious at the thought of cutting science just to balance the books. “It’s a sort of declaration of a paralysed mind if the only way to make the cuts that are necessary is to make equal misery for all. That’s easy. A clever thing would be to say, “What is forging ahead? What is essential to the fiscal and intellectual wealth of the country?” Let’s help those because they are going to take us forward. Just slashing everything is madness.”

The full interview features in this week’s Research Fortnight, out today.

Top LibDem slams ‘disastrous’ proposal to merge regulators

by Elizabeth Gibney

Liberal Democrat peer Phil Willis, former head of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, has condemned government plans to merge the research regulation functions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue Authority.

The Department of Health said on 26 July that the coalition intends to abolish the agencies and create a single body for medical research regulation, also absorbing the National Research Ethics Service. The Care Quality Commission and the Information Centre for Health and Social would take on other functions of the agencies.

Tory health secretary Andrew Lansley said that, subject to Parliamentary approval, eight or ten of his department’s 18 ‘arm’s-length bodies’ would be cut, saving more than £180 million by 2014-15.

But a joint Lords and Commons committee on the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, chaired by Willis, has already considered and rejected a proposal to merge the bodies—in 2007. “We went through this in huge detail,” Willis told Research Fortnight. “There was a total agreement of the joint committee: regulating tissue and embryos are separate functions. The idea that you have a single focus for what are distinct functions would be a retrograde step."

David Cameron, champion of civil liberties, is about to impose a National Identity Number on you

by William Cullerne Bown

Having killed Labour's plans for a National Identity Card, David Cameron seems to be on the verge of introducing its little brother, a National Identity Number. This is the unavoidable implication of the reports in recent weeks that the government will cancel the UK Census after the one in 2011.

The Census provides vital data for important decisions and social studies but is expensive. And there is another way. The Nordic nations replaced their censuses with data from other government databases years ago. The result? The US, which has a similar system to us, reportedly spends $36 per head on its census while Finland gets the same data for 20 cents per head.

This is the reason why the Office of National Statistics has been working on a Beyond 2011 project. It seems a no brainer. But look a bit deeper and the difficulties and downsides start to mount.

Vince Cable rejects Graduate Tax. REPEAT: VINCE CABLE REJECTS GRADUATE TAX

by William Cullerne Bown

Mike Baker over at the BBC is reporting today that senior Conservatives are rejecting Vince Cable's proposal for a Graduate Tax.

That's both right and wrong. Right because there is no reason for Conservatives to support a Graduate Tax (as I pointed out here and here). Wrong because it turns out to be a massive over-simplification to say that Cable has in fact proposed a Graduate Tax.

In his big speech on higher education last week, Cable never uttered the phrase "Graduate Tax".  The key part of the speech comes in the midst of a horribly convoluted passage and reads:

"I am interested in looking at the feasibility of changing the system of financing student tuition so that the repayment mechanism is variable graduate contributions tied to earnings".

Given the confused language around here in the speech, I suspect that most readers (like me) have been content to accept the speech's advance billing and to read this as support for a Graduate Tax. How wrong can you be.

Greenish must go, says Oxford physicist

by Laura Hood

A respected Oxford physicist has called for Philip Greenish, chief executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering, to resign from the UK’s top particle physics funding body.

Brian Foster, a professor of experimental physics at Oxford, says that Greenish’s position at the Science and Technology Facilities Council, which controls particle physics funding, is untenable since the Academy called on the government to redirect funding away from physics to support engineering.

“Greenish’s position is clearly intolerable,” says Foster. “He’s in the position of being a member of the council of an organisation, all of whose Royal Charter aims he has rubbished.”

Foster, a former chairman of Institute of Physics Nuclear and Particle Physics Division, is the first senior physicist to go on the record on the subject. But many members of the IoP are understood to be furious with RAE members over what they see as a betrayal. Particle physicists are concerned that a member of the academy holds sway on a group that ultimately has control over their funding.

Foster has written to Greenish to warn him that he should either formally distance himself from the document or leave the STFC council.